If you love pagan gospel, head to the Proms
IT is a 120-year-old institution where the finest classical music is performed live for the public.
But this year’s BBC Proms will feature unconventional forms such as disco-punk and pagan-gospel in an attempt to attract a younger audience.
The eight-week festival, which returns in mid-July, will include a late-night concert in which conductor Jules Buckley and his ensemble ‘present their take’ on the sound of New York.
Vocalist Serpent with feet, who produces ‘pagan gospel’ music, will take centre stage at the New York: Sound of the City prom. The tattoo-covered musician, who has a prominent septum piercing, is a trained jazz vocalist who had a strict religious upbringing.
He considered becoming an opera singer but became a pagan-gospel performer because he did not want to wear a tuxedo.
Organisers also hope to book feminist rap artist Princess Nokia, whose music is littered with expletives, for the controversial prom at the Royal Albert Hall on August 8.
Other contemporary music in this year’s programme includes the Proms debut of Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour and his band Le Super Etoile de Dakar.
Original members of the Cuban group Buena Vista Social Club will perform at the Havana Meets Kingston event that will bring various forms of reggae to the classical festival.
Meanwhile, YouTube star Jacob Collier, a UK singer and multi-instrumentalist, will have his own prom in the 19th-century building.
The festival will have more than 100,000 tickets at less than £15 and deals for under-18s.
The BBC was accused of dumbing down the Proms in 2015 with an Ibiza-style dance party hosted by DJ Pete Tong.